We have come a long way since Thomas Edison introduced the world to electric light bulbs. Though Edison’s patented incandescent bulb paved the way for modern electric lighting, it was fairly rudimentary compared to the smart lighting systems we have today. Still, we would not have smart lighting if it were not for the work of Edison and those inventors who came before him.

Now that we do have smart lighting, we can do some pretty amazing things with it. If you would like to know more about how smart light bulbs work, I recommend a detailed post published on the Vivint Smart Home website. Vivint is a nationwide leader in home automation and security.

Without giving away too much of the post, I will say that Vivint lists five interesting things you can do with smart lighting. The remainder of this post will discuss them in a bit more detail.

1. Automate Your Lighting

Perhaps the one smart lighting feature virtually everyone knows about is automation. If you invested in smart lighting and never learned anything else about it, learning how to automate can both save money and increase the convenience factor of lighting your house.

Smart lighting systems connect to some sort of controller through a local wireless network. That controller is usually a smartphone or a central smart home hub. With it, you can program various lights in your home to turn on and off at scheduled times. Automated lighting can make your daily life more convenient and increase security when you are not home.

2. Customize Your Lighting

Given that smart light bulbs are also LED bulbs, having a smart lighting system also means being able to customize the lighting throughout your home. One of the examples offered by Vivint is creating customized lighting scenes for holidays or special events. For example, you could light up the family room with red and green lights during the Christmas season. You don’t need separate bulbs when you have smart LED bulbs with tunable color.

3. Create Lighting Groups

One of my favorite features is being able to create light groups throughout my house. For instance, you can create a single group that consists of all the lights in the kitchen and dining room. You can create another group that includes lights in the front entryway and just inside the living room.

Why do so? Because creating groups allows for more specialized programming. You can control each group separately. As an added bonus, some lights can be included in multiple groups. This further increases your ability to control how lighting operates.

4. Adjust Intensity

The intensity of the lights in a smart lighting system can be adjusted with either a smartphone or central hub. Not only that, but a smart light bulb can also be dimmed or intensified by way of programming. That means you can automate when certain lights are dimmed or intensified. Maybe you prefer softer lights first thing in the morning and brighter lights in the evening. Just program them that way.

5. Activate with Motion

Finally, smart lights can be activated with motion and then programmed to shut off after a certain amount of time. Motion activation is pretty easy to install. And although Vivint does not mention it, I will throw in voice activation as well. Between motion and voice, it is possible to never touch a light switch again.

Smart lighting represents a great entry point into home automation. You can do a lot of interesting things with it. Personally, I recommend smart lights to anyone getting into home automation for the first time.